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       GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS

First the bad news: On this day in 42BC Marcus Brutis, the assassin of Julius Caesar gets his. Pope Eugenius II’s eyes turn heavenward in 827 and Ivan III (Ivan The Great) keels over in 1505.

Now the Good news: 1858: Rowland Macy opens up shop in NYC (tomorrow Gimbels will buy the lot across the street.). 1904: First practical subway opens in NYC, running from The Brooklyn Bridge (which earlier in the day had been sold to two tourists from Iowa) to Manhattan. The opening is marked by fighting, shoving, pushing, hysteria, screaming and swooning . . just a normal day on the subway. Today in 1916 Variety reports that Chicago has added another first, the term "Jazz Band" is coined there.. 1917: Jascha Heifetz makes his debut at Carnegie Hall at 17. What took him so long?

Other News. In 1775 American sailors are treated to the following Sunday menu: 1lb potatoes or turnips, 1Lb beef, 1lb bread. SOS has yet to be invented. In 1795 The Treaty of San Lorenzo between Spain and the United States settles boundary with Florida and gives Mississippi Navigation rights to North America.

Only four more days till the weekend. Trust this week will be a breeze for you.

                                - RM 10/16/98

notable birthdays John Cleese o Fred DeCordova o Ruby Dee o Desiderius Erasmus o Nanette Fabray o Cleo Laine o Simon LeBon o Fran Lebowitz o Roy Lichtenstein o James Macpherson o Margaret Naylor o Niccolo Paginani o Sylvia Plath o Theodore Roosevelt o Isaac Singer o Carrie Snodgrass o Dylan Thomas
Rod's random thoughts Loneliness is the casualty of absence.

Autumn is the crown of every summer.

Even when the candle sputters, hope hides inside the flame ready to spring forward and jump out.

Only men of little importance keep others waiting.

THE SINGING OF THE WIND / EIGHTEEN

I stood watching
as you crossed the street for the last time
trying hard to memorize you
knowing it would be important
the way you walked
the way you looked back over your shoulder at me.

Years later I would hear the singing of the wind
and that day singing would come back
that time of going would return to me
every sun gray day... April or August
it would be the same for years to come.

No man has made the kind of bromide
that would let me sleep without your memory
or written erotically enough to erase
the excitement of just your hands.

These long years later it is worse
for I know what it was
as well as what it might have been.

                               - from Listen To The Warm, 1966

© 1966, 1978, 1980, 1998 by Stanyan Music Group & Rod McKuen. All Rights Reserved
Birthday research by Wade Alexander
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